Principal production is scheduled to start as soon as April, studioEmbankment Films has announced on its website.

A source confirms toTheImproper that the movie won’t be shot in Iraq as originally reported. The film will likely do its location shooting in Morocco or Jordan.

A number of period desert films have been shot the North African country, including 2001′s “Black Hawk Down.” In the last few years, Michael Patrick King’s“Sex and the City 2,” Disney’s “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” and “Inception” have been filmed there.

But Director Kathryn Bigelow chose to film her Oscar-winning Iraq war epic, “The Hurt Locker,” in Jordan. She wanted to be as close to Iraq as possible, while avoiding the war-torn country. “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” also filmed in Jordan in 1988.

Reports surfaced last November that Pattinson, 26, would film at least some portions of “Mission Blacklist” in western Iraq. Conditions are still tense there and sectarian killings by suicide bombers are still almost an everyday occurrence…